By Jim Sterne
When your web analyst walks up to you with a spring in his step, a gleam in his eye and a pie chart in his hand do you inwardly wince at the conversation to come? Unique visitors, bounce rates, Twitter uptake ratios - it's all perfectly logical - if that's your full time job. If not, here are the three things you can do to make that experience less cringe-worthy:
Step One: Forgive Them Their Passion
These people are truly excited about the fact that people who clicked on this banner ad on that website between noon and four pm looked at 26% more pages than in the morning. They are the ones who can read the tealeaves and really know where the tea was grown, how it was harvested and how the healing properties interact with your physiology depending on your circadian rhythm phase. They are excited and they like to share.
You should encourage their enthusiasm but you need to train them. I recommend an avuncular approach.
Step Two: Explain Where They Fit In
"Your reports are very interesting, but what do they mean to our business?"
If you want ROI out of these cool new tools and the people who work with them, you have to take responsibility for the reports they hand you. Intricate detail on every click is important to website designers and campaign managers - but not you. Do not get caught up the in minutiae of data gathering techniques. Do not ask them why your web analytics system numbers and your agency reports don't match. They will tell you and you don't need to know.
Instead, turn the conversation toward your goals and your company's goals. "Can you think of a way to measure the quality of leads that come through our website? Can you then devise an experiment to determine how we can get better leads by spending less money for them?"
Step Three: Do Something About It
You want to see better, more usable web intelligence? Use it. Take action on the information. Make changes in your promotional mix, your market segment messaging or your reach and frequency practices - and then encourage your web data people to report on the business impact of those changes. Follow that up with asking for their interpretation of the data in business terms and you have made a giant step forward.
You will have made them feel like an important part of the continuous improvement process because they will be an important part of your process. And the best part? The next time you see that web analyst with a spring in his step, the conversation will be about better leads and better marketing ROI.
Jim Sterne is the founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and
the Chairman of the Web Analytics Association
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